Ok, now this all took place actually about 3 and a half years ago:
At A Glance Author Imminence Contact Imminence@bme.anon IAM Imminence When Two years ago Artist My ex-best friend Studio her apartment Location Albuquerque, NM I first met Jamie when I first moved here to New Mexico. We spent a lot of time together, and we were the best of friends. One day, we were sitting on her porch, havin a cigarette, when we were talking about piercings. I know then I wanted one, but I didn't know what to get. But, seeing as though I was barely turning 18 in a few months, I decided it would have to be something we could do ourselves.
After a couple hours of contemplating, we decided to pierce my nose. She went to her bedroom, and came back with a jewelry box with various piercing studs, and earrings. picking the sharpest one, she dropped it in a dish of hydrogen peroxide (at least she did that!). As she let it sit, she took out a sharpie to mark where she was going to put the hole. It seemed a little high up into the nostril at the time, but I agreed it'd look kinda cool there. Now, to keep me distracted so I wouldn't concentrate on the needle, she kept talking about how she would pierce her own belly button! (Totally different story there!).
As she took the stud out and started to dry it off, I was getting kind of nervous. She told me I'd hear a series of 3 pops, and that I'd feel the stud going through 3 layers of my nose. If that didn't scare me enough! It kinda resisted the stud at first, but finally, the 3rd pop came. My eye was watering like a son-of-a-bitch, so I dried my eye off, and went outside to have a cigarette. Ok, so it hurt, but not as bad as I thought it would...I guess the fact that she told me to expect POPS kind of freaked me out. But it's all good, it wasn't bad at all. Sitting outside, I couldn't stop looking at my nose, which in turn, made me look all cross-eyed! My nose throbbed a little bit, and it kinda hurt when I touched it off and on, but it looked cool!
The next day, I went shopping for different studs to put in there, seeing as though the piercing stud (which had a giant gold ball on the end of it), looked really dumb, and it was a little big. So, walking into Hot Topic, I found the coolest one. A tiny little diamond, thats small enough to not make a huge difference in appearance, but large enough to notice from across the room. (Odd, I know!). Walking out of the store, with jewelry in hand, I figured I had made a good choice.
When I got home, I immediately took the stud out and put it in a dish of peroxide to clean it. After that, I took out the giant gold ball and put that in. Everything was all ok, until a couple days later....my nose felt really horrible! It was throbbing in pain, and it turned purple, and had some gucky discharge from around the diamond. "Great," I thought to myself "it's infected." So, I took the jewelry out, and cleaned the area with peroxide and rubbing alcohol.
Well, I could tell you everything is all good now, but not really. I went to Duke City Ink, here in Albuquerque, and went to my piercer, Joel. He looked at my nose, (which felt fine for the past few years...turns out I was allergic to the metal used to make the jewelry), and told me there was a lot of scar tissue in the pierced area. Obviously, there's nothing I can do about scar tissue, even though I felt kinda bad...I mean, it wasn't exactly a professional piercer that did it.
So now, almost 4 years later, I still have my stud in (obviously a different one), and I still have scar tissue. BUT, in turn, I would NOT recommend this to anyone. If you want your nose, or ANYTHING pierced, go see a professional. Otherwise, you'll turn out like me and many others who have attempted this themselves. It may end up infected, with scar tissue, or maybe it'd never heal over if you decided to take it out. (I've seen it happen). If you're here in Albuquerque, go to Duke City Ink. They have the best piercer (Joel), and the best tattoo artist (Brandon) in the state. They have been nothing but helpful, reasonable, and fair in their piercings and prices. Some prices may be a SHADE higher than others, but they do not compensate quality. They are simply the best! They always make sure you're comfortable, have better tasting mouthwash than any others, and they actually TELL you what they're doing as they're doing it. They do this, so you can see the steps the y take, and their sterile environment.
I hope you've learned from my mistakes. Thank you. Email me if you'd like the address for Duke City Ink :)